there is nothing funny about humours: the origins of the
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ORE Open Research Exeter
TITLE
There is nothing funny about Humours: The origins of the humoral theory in Hippocratic Medicine
AUTHORS
Stewart, Keith
DEPOSITED IN ORE
07 May 2013
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There is nothing funny about Humours: The origins of the
humoral theory in Hippocratic medicine.
Keith Stewart
Department of Classics and Ancient History
University of Exeter
The Humours
• The humours are regarded as four fundamental fluids, which determine health and illness in the body
• These four fluids are Blood, Phlegm, Yellow Bile and Black Bile
• The basis of theory comes from Greek medicine
The Humours
• Rudolf Virchow’s 1858 Cellular Pathology was part of a process that replaced the humours as the explanation of how the human body works (Guthrie, 1960: 282-283)
• The best starting point to understand how this humour theory developed is the physician Galen, who lived in second century AD
Galen
• Born in Pergamum in AD 129, his family were wealthy, which allowed Galen to obtain a good education in rhetoric, philosophy and medicine
• Galen started working as a physician for gladiators in Pergamum in AD 157
• Later Galen gained influence in Marcus Aurelius’ imperial court and became an imperial physician for Marcus Aurelius, Commodus and finally Septimus Severus
Galen and the Humours
• Elements or Atoms? – Galen was not convinced that random particles could
explain how the body worked
– Galen used the authority of Hippocrates to present an elemental theory of the body: • If people were made up of atoms, they would not be able to
feel pain (Galen, On the Elements According to Hippocrates, 2.15-17)
– Galen stated that the random nature of particles in atomic theory could not explain how substances change from hot to cold or dry to wet or explain human temperaments and behaviour (Galen, On the Elements
According to Hippocrates, 2.15-17)
Galen and the Humours
• Galen showed how the four humours could be explained by the combination of qualities: Hot, Cold, Dry and Wet (Galen, On the Causes of Diseases, VII 21-22):
• Hot and Wet = Blood
• Hot and Dry = Yellow Bile
• Cold and Dry = Black Bile
• Cold and Wet = Phlegm
Galen and the Humours
Hot Dry
Wet Hot
Cold Wet
Dry Cold
Moistening
Cooling
Drying Moistening
Heating
Drying
YELLOW BILE
BLOOD
PHLEGM
BLACK BILE
The Hippocratic Corpus
• The Hippocratic Corpus is a set of medical texts, mostly written in the fifth and fourth centuries BC
• They are named after the physician Hippocrates, but there is much debate about who actually wrote these texts
National Library of Medicine
Hippocratic Humours
• One of the Hippocratic texts which presents the four humours as Blood, Phlegm, Yellow Bile and Black Bile is the Nature of Man
• But the presence of humours as a theory to describe health and disease in the Hippocratic Corpus is more complex than the content of this single text …
Problems with Hippocratic Humours
• Nature of Man – Blood (hot and wet) associated with spring
– Yellow Bile (hot and dry) associated with summer
– Black Bile (cold and dry) associated with autumn
– Phlegm (cold and wet) associated with winter
– We are healthy when these four humours are perfectly mixed together in the body
– Disease occurs when one or more of these humours separates from the mixture and moves around the body
Problems with Hippocratic Humours ANCIENT MEDICINE
(Infinite number of opposites)
DISEASES IV (Blood, Bile, Phlegm and Water)
The Sacred Disease (Phlegm and Bile)
Regimen I (Fire and Water)
BREATHS (All things come from Air)
Problems with Hippocratic Humours
• Chronology – There are over 60 texts in the Hippocratic Corpus,
which have been written by different authors
– Most of the texts come from the late fifth century BC, but some are thought to be dated to the fourth century BC and a few might have been written as late as the first century AD
– It is therefore very difficult to try to trace a development of a particular theory through these texts
Progress?
• There is some consistency in the Hippocratic texts – Fluids are important, Mixture and Separation are key
mechanisms
• Presocratic Philosophy is a helpful comparison – Empedocles, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Democritus etc.
• Questioning idea of Elements, Particles and the Void as explanations for the fundamental nature of matter in this context
• Looking at how these authors use analogies and descriptions of practical experiments in these texts is also important
Conclusion
• Galen’s work on the humours is taken from a small selection of what was actually available in the Hippocratic Corpus
• The idea of Humours in the Hippocratic Corpus is complex – But there is some consistency in terms of fluids and
mixtures
• Must look at this type of philosophy in context of what was going on in the sixth, fifth and fourth centuries BC – Presocratic philosophy compared to the work of the
physicians writing the Hippocratic texts
Bibliography
• De Lacy, P. (trans.) (1996), Galen: On the Elements According to Hippocrates, Berlin.
• Guthrie, D. (1960), A History of Medicine, London
• Hankinson, R. J. (trans.) (1998), Galen: On Antecedent Causes, Cambridge.
• Jones, W. H. S. (trans.) (2005), Hippocrates: Volume I, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Jones, W. H. S. (trans.) (2006), Hippocrates: Volume II, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Jones, W. H. S. (trans.) (2005), Hippocrates: Volume IV, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Potter, P. (trans.) (1988a), Hippocrates: Volume V, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Potter, P. (trans.) (1988b), Hippocrates: Volume VI, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Potter, P. (trans.) (1995), Hippocrates: Volume VIII, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Smith, W. D. (trans.) (1994), Hippocrates: Volume VII, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Withington, E. T. (trans.) (2005), Hippocrates: Volume III, Cambridge, Massachusetts.